RAW/CR2 preview vs Affinity Photo

[itsamemario]

Hi there!

I recently started using RAW rather then JPEG for my photos and I'm somewhat confused.

In both, Windows and macOS, when previewing CR2 files in the preview tools that come with the OS, the images load and for a moment they look (sometimes drastically) different than when loaded in Affinity Photo. It takes maybe a second or so and the images seem to be processed, after which they look like they do in Affinity Photo.

On macOS, with XnViewMP, it always displays that "unprocessed" version, it seems.

Can someone explain what's happening here?

 

[Pšenda]

RAW files contain a thumbnail, ie a small record of how the image would be taken directly by the camera (ie captured and converted into image data). Most browsers then only display this preview (due to the display speed), as with other formats, while APhoto displays already developed RAW data, which are without any adjustments and can therefore look very different (color and exposure).

[itsamemario]

Thank you, Pšenda, that explains it nicely. It was driving me nuts.

Is it possible to export this preview from within Affinity Photo somehow?

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, itsamemario said:

Is it possible to export this preview from within Affinity Photo somehow?

I'm afraid Affinity doesn't have this feature. However, it should be remembered that the quality of this thumbnails is not very great.

Try to look here:

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/extract-jpg-raw-2/

 

[itsamemario]

Sorry for the late reply - and thanks for the link!

I extracted the JPEG preview using ERawP which worked fine - but what do you mean about the quality? Just that JPEG is already compressed?

[Pšenda]

15 minutes ago, itsamemario said:

but what do you mean about the quality? Just that JPEG is already compressed?

It depends on the camera, how large and quality thumbnails it inserts into the RAW file. However, in order for this to have a positive effect when viewing these files, the loading of thumbnails must be fast, ie it must be small in data. This means, that it must have low resolution and low quality (high compression). Just look at the parameters of the extracted thumbnails.